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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Elk River Watershed Initiative Association visited our class today. The showed us the video "After the Storm" produced by the EPA and the Weather Channel. If you would like to order a free copy of this video click here. You can find information from the video here. I have asked for permission to upload the video to the blog. Hopefully, I will receive permission to put it here.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The comprehension skill for this weeks story is main idea and supporting details. The main idea is the most important idea about the topic. The supporting details are "proof" of the main idea. A good way to show main idea and supporting details is with a graphic organizer.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Congratulations to the fifth grade winners of the McDonald County Soil and Water Conservation District Poster Contest. The students were asked to create a poster encouraging soil or water conservation. The winning posters will be displayed at the McDonald County Fair this July.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Congratulations, Colby on winning the Blogging Tiger Award for Writing for your Journey to the Center of the Earth post. Don't forget to add the name of the story under your Blogging Tiger badge on your site.

Also congratulations to to Kyle and Johnathan for winning the Commenting Tiger Award for their entry on Simple Machines Visited. I really liked your tree house idea. It would keep dangerous animals away from you at night, (and tree houses are the hotness!)

If you want to win a Blogging Tiger Award, then work hard. The winners have won because of outstanding ideas and hard work. They deserve to be recognized for their excellence. If you work hard, you may find your post winning an award.

I am interested in your learning style. I think it is important for you and me to understand the way you learn best. You can use this information to become a better student, and I can use it to become a better teacher.

Remember to answer each question honestly. There are no wrong answers. When you are finished with I will explain the results.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Go to WikiAnswers and find out what biomes are in Australia. Can you match any of the animals we saw on the Zoo Life video with the biomes? Write the three main biomes and any animals from the video that would fit in them.

Originally the research on the ghost towns of McDonald County came from a story in our reading series about ghost towns of the west. Through serendipity I found a site that listed two ghost towns in our own county. One thing led to another and we end up here. I hope this is not the last post on this subject.

I received the following email in response to questions posted on my first post about Ghost Towns of McDonald County. It is wonderful to have the excellent resources of our county librarians to help with this.

I looked over the comments and questions that your students posted. I couldn'tfind a link to post the answers and my comments, so if you could pass this onto your students, I would appreciate it.

I am glad that your class was excited about learning about ghost towns.Hopefully, one of them will be interested enough to explore further, sothat someday they can pass along this history when someone in thenext generation asks about it, just as I did.

**Ashley and Jeffery wrote that they didn't think there was so much historyin McDonald County. Please let them know that I can show them pictures andtell them stories that would blow their minds. Our county has a tremendoushistory- some good and some not.** Jonathan said it was cool to have a ghost town because if you are tired ofpeople, you can go to the ghost town and camp. Please tell him not to campat Coy. It is situated along Patterson Creek and copperheads already campthere, and don't like to share their space.** Kiley asked why the town was called Coy. The answer is speculative butI believe it was because a farmer by the name of George McCoy was one ofthe early settlers and they shortened the name from McCoy to Coy. That is the way they sometimes named towns. Anderson was named afterRobert Anderson; Noel is named after Willis Bridges Noel, and Goodman wasnamed after Lowell Goodman.** Colby and Francisco wanted to know if people are still allowed to go thereand if they give tours. Yes, you can travel the road that leads to Coy but thereare no tours scheduled. Sadly, there is not a single building or landmark thatremains that suggests the town ever existed. It is a beautiful spot, though.If you would like the location, here it is:From Anderson, drive west on Hwy 76 West 4 1'2 miles to Coy Road- turnright (north). Appproximately, one mile down that road, you will come to abridge. Before crossing the bridge on the right hand side, there was once a store,blacksmith shop, and mill. The canning factory was located nearby. As youcross the bridge, you come to a fork in the road. That road is named PattersonCreek Road. If you turn right, you will see a group of lakes on the right hand sidethat are beautiful. If you take a left at the fork, you will see farmland on the leftalong the creek and on the right hand side, you will see the Mitchell Cemetery. Myhusband's great-great grandfather settled there in 1850 and his son, Robert Lee,later deeded the land to be used as a cemetery without charge to those who wishto be buried there. My husband and I decorate it for Memorial Day and keep itmowed and neat.[Cemeteries are special to those who have loved family members buried there.]

Now about Cowskin: Wade and Trystan want to know how Cowskin got its' name. This is what itwritten in one of our history books, Sturgis History of McDonald County:

Beginning in the northwest part of the county, the first stream of note, is Buffalo Creek,flowing and passing into Indian Territory near Tiff City. It is a beautiful stream of clear,cold water, fed by various streams, and along its' banks are some of the richest farmlands in McDonald County. It was named many years before a white man thought ofsettling on its' banks. The name, Buffalo, was given this creek by the first Catholicmissionary that ever visited the Indians of this part of America. During his journey,supposedly, heavy rain fell and the Buffalo Creek, as well as Elk River, rose until it waspast fording, and the camp was obliged to go into camp between the two streams untilthe water level came down. While being delayed, a buffalo cow was killed by one of theparties camping there, and the skin was preserved. From this event, the missionarygave the name, Cowskin to the river. The exact The location of Cowskin Prairie starts at Saratoga Springs, just west of Noel edgingsouthward about two miles to Southwest City,and westward about ten miles, extendingnorthward to Elk River, southwest of Anderson on Hwy 43 . It extends westward aboutfive miles into Indian Territory(now known as Oklahoma) in Delaware County. As I mentioned before, it was the scene of some Civil War encampments during theyears of 1861-1865.

Thank you, class for all your kind words and appreciation for our Library. We try tomake it a fun and worthwhile place to visit. Hope to see you soon.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Our classes are reading about ghost towns in reading this week. While on the Google looking for anything interesting about ghost towns I found a site that is about ghost towns in Missouri. I lost the link, but I remember that it identified two towns in McDonald County: Coy and Cowskin.

After thinking about these places I decided to email our local library to see if I could find out where these sites were and maybe learn something about them. I emailed Carrie Cline, the Library Director for the McDonald County Library, to ask if she could do some research. She forwarded the email to Retha Mitchell, the Genealogy Assistant for the McDonald County Library. She happens to live near the old site of Coy and is writing a history book. This is what she emailed me back:

Coy Community

Four and a half miles west on Hwy 76 and amile north, lies the remains of a communityknown as Coy. It was here in the early 1880'sthat Sterling Mitchell built a water mill andplatted out a town. Mitchell operated thewater-powered roller mill, producing flourfor awhile, but soon sold out. After that,it changed hands several times, until TomWimpey and George McCoy bought it.These two men are reputed to haveoperated the mill successfully for severalyears. There was also a post office in thecommunity. Wimpey requested a U.S. postoffice be established there, and the requestwas granted Feb. 12, 1886, with the nameof it being Coy. Wimpey served as the firstpostmaster. Succeeding postmasters wereWilliam T. Cunningham, Lafayette Langley,Thomas Murray, John D. Meares, Lester Drake,and again Lafayette Langley. After seventeenyears of service, the post office was closed.This had been the second post office in thearea, as John A. McMillen had previouslyestablished the Orchard Grove Post OfficeJuly 3, 1878, but it closed two months later,reason unknown.Two stores are known to have been at Coy,perhaps more. The first store was started byTom Wimpey. Later storekeepers were FrankBeeman, Howard Langley, W.G. Smith, andWilliam Cunningham.John and Dallas Seabourn were the nextstorekeepers followed by John B. Meares.Meares' daughter, Grace, was young at thetime, but enjoyed working and helping herfather in the store. Many years later, Gracemarried James Hutchinson, and they built anew brick store building. Later, they had fivechildren. After James died, Grace ran the storefor about five years. Mae Watson took over thestore next. Lastly, Logan Hatfield was storeoperator. By this time, there was a tall gasolinepump in front, and above the porch roof, was asign that read, "Coy, Mo., AG Food Market AG".In addition to the feed mill, store, and postoffice, there was a hotel, barber shop,saw mill,gas station, canning factory, and a drug store.There were at one time, two churches in Coy,both Baptist oriented. One was the FreewillBaptist organized and built in Coy, and theMissionary Baptist Church, located about 1 1/2miles west of town, along Patterson Creek Road.The location of the town was enhanced bothaesthetically and business-wise, by PattersonCreek, a well fed spring, which rises from BoilSpring, east of Coy, and is fed by other springsalong the way in a westerly flow. A large springon the Jimmy Dalton place flows into PattersonCreek. Below his place, on property once ownedby Leonard and Louise Alexander, are some lakesthat are fed by Patterson Creek. It was a conven-ient water hole for baptisms. All of the churchesin that area used it for that purpose.The Victory Road Church of God of the ApostolicFaith was another church that organized in thearea in 1966. Being without a building, Elmer andClara Abercrombie allowed them to meet in theMcMillen School and church building which theyowned. After a year, the building burned, andresidents were saddened that an old landmark hadbeen lost. The Victory Road Church relocated to apiece of land bordering Hwy. 43, and have a schoolthere, now.The McMillen School had been organized manyyears earlier, when the county was young. It notonly served as a school, but also as a polling place,church, and meeting place for community events.Elin White now owns the land where the buildingonce stood.The Mitchell Cemetery is along Patterson CreekRoad in the Coy area, and is well maintained. Ronnieand Retha Mitchell are the caretakers of the cemeterynow. His great grandfather, Robert Lee Mitchell,originally donated the land for the cemetery.During the 1920's or 1930's, Bob Chamberlainoperated a canning factory in Coy, as well as Andersonand Tiff City.They had contracts with the growers forall the tomatoes they could grow. Mr. Chamberlainended up losing in that venture, and soon closed thefactory.There is very little to left to prove that a thrivinglittle town once enjoyed success at this location, butCoy had it's day- a beautiful little community of goodneighbors and busy days of hard work. It is still abeautiful area and one that I am proud to call home.

We are fortunate to have such knowledgeable and engaging people working out our local library. You are the reason libraries are the useful repositories of knowledge they are. Thank you ladies for your time and effort. My class appreciates your help.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Here is a link to Edheads page on simple machines. After you check out the activities, tell me which two machines you would want with you if you were stranded on a deserted island. Tell me how you use them. Remember, do not click links off site. Only do the activity on the page.